All this talk about fragmentation and viruses is inconsequential to users. I can do almost everything on ICS compared to Jellybean. Viruses/Malware? Never heard of any reported incidents that many users. Way overblown.
BUT what is more crucial is daily use of the phone. And here is where iphone5s/iOS have the following major
shortcomings which makes it much lagging behind Android/Note3 in every day use.
1. Lack of Back/Menu hardkey and context sensitive popup menu.
30-40% of screen area is taken up by top navigation and bottom command buttons bars leaving less screen area for useful information and cluttering of the screen with buttons just makes the UI ugly. Placement of Back button is inconsistent depending on apps and you have to make effort to look for it. Placement of back button at the top left makes one-handed use difficult requiring big thumb movement to reach which also cause thumb to block screen causing viewing distraction.
Android more screen area and no cluttering as commands can be nicely tugged away in Menu/Popup menu.
2. The great iOS Settings Mess
iOS centralized settings is a real pain to use as you need to exit the app to activate. Plus searching for the settings become tedious if you have lots of apps installed. Inconsistency as some apps also have an in-app setting as well as global settings.
Android App settings in the app itself and system settings in main.
3. Lethargic and slow scrolling
iOS scrolling is stunted with lots of inertia - no matter how big or quick the swipe, it just scroll a short distance before coming to a stop. It is so frustrating slow when scrolling long lists or webpages.
Android - the distance and scrolling speed varies depending on how you swipe. You can make it scroll fast and long distance with one big/quick swipe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH1GDLunomY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dn-8aR_Ht4
4. No filesystem - Very unfriendly for user data/file due to its silo App-centric design
You have to load your files into the app before the app can use the files causing duplications if you use multiple apps to consume the same files. And files cannot be shared. RIDICULOUS thing is if you uninstall the app it DELETES all your files==>iOS doesnt care at all about your important data/files. So many ios users resort to using cloud storage which is slow and consume more data/battery and totally unworkable with huge files.
Android - data centric design. You organize your all important files securely anyway you like in the filesystem. You can use any apps to consume the files using the "Open with.." capability. Time-tested design which we are used to in PC.
5. No shortcuts support
e.g One one copy of app icon - can't create another copy of the app icon in 2 or more folders. Need to launch the app first before you can open files
Android - you can create homescreen shortcut icons to anything - app, direct dial/sms/contact, file in storage, weblink, automated tasks/scripts etc. You can put shortcuts of your most used information (files/links/direct dial/direct sms) on the homescreen (or a homescreen folder) and with just one tap it will launch the relevant app to open the shortcut.
6. No USB/USB host support
Plug in phone to computer via USB port and you only have access to your photo folder. Everything else is locked down. Need to installed itunes to even copy files to/from the phone internal storage (and restricted to ONE PC - ridiculous).
Android - Plug the phone to computer and internat storage shows up as disk in the PC. You can copy files in/out of phone easily. Plug in a portable drive directly to phone USB and you can access files in the portable drive from the phone. Or plug supported plug-and-play usb devices (e.g. joystick/gamepad/mouse etc) and use it with the phone.
7. Very user unfriendly data sharing
Sharing information directly from an app is limited to fb/tw/email. e.g. You cannot share a link in the browser other than with supported protocols. You have to copy the link, close the browser, open the other sharing app and paste the links into it. And major pain-in-the-behind if sharing to many non-supported sources.
Android - click on anything you want to share ANYWHERE (inside app/email/browser/homescreen etc) and pick from a list of installed share-enabled apps (incl. BT, Wifi-direct, NFC) and data is shared. Repeat to share to another source. Simple and elegant.
8.No Standard WCDMA 3G-standard video calling.
Why iphone does not support this makes no sense. This capability enables you to video call to ANY 3G-enabled phone even dumb-phone without data plan. Instead you get the proprietary Facetime.
9.Limited Email Attachment/No File Download support/Limited File Format
Cannot attach any files (except photo) you want to email. Cannot download and save files to your internal storage and then reuse the files. Need convoluted workarounds to do attach files to email or use inefficient dropbox to save downloaded files.
Android - no such restrictions (i.e. PC-based capability)
10. No Widgets support
No widgets on homescreen. Some may say use notification to see but this is not practical as you get interrupted by notifications all the time and your notification gets clutter (esp. tw/fb - not so essential and with lots of message). Add to this pain is the iOS notifications are tedious to clear and the notification blocks the screen.
AndroidWidgets are so useful for quick glance without opening apps. You can have all essential information (weather,logs,birthdays,to-dos,events,fb,tw,stocks,warnings) AGGREGATED on one (or more) homescreen. This beats having to open app after app to get all these essential information (and imagine repeating this over and over everyday).
11. Safari does not support text reflow/text fitting/user agents
No support for text reflow always require tedious side-scroll to view text. You cannot specify a fixed font size and the browser will reflow text to fit the screen width at that font size(it always fit the column of the page which most of the time text is too small to read).
Android/Note3 Web-broswer supports text reflow at specified viewing/zoomed font size - you do not need to side-scroll like in iOS browser. This is better than "reader mode" in iOS as this leaves the webpage layout intact. Also you can set user agent (i.e. always fetch desktop version of the webpage). The browser integrates with download manager allowing you to download and save any files from website into phone internal storage.
12. Wifi Hotspot Limitation
You cannot use your phone at the same time if you enabled hotspot. If you move away from the hotspot page (or open another app), the hotspot is terminated.
Android/Note3 You can continue to use your phone and the wifi hotspot still functioning in the background.
13.Connectivity Lockdown
No BlueTooth/Wifi-Direct/USB3 direct file transfer. To transfer huge video files to phone is really a pain. You can only do it on one Itunes PC. And Itunes takes ages to convert the video to support format before sync. Cannot do it adhocly when you are out and about/at your friend's place/on holiday.
Android - plug in the cable/turn on BT/Wifi-direct/NFC and you are good to go - anytime any place.
14.Limited Customization
Cannot do much at all. Cannot change icon sets or color schemes or font styles or homescreen launchers or default apps.
Android - Anything goes. It just makes the phone much more fun. You don't have to make use of it as the stock phone is already very capable. Who doesnt get bored seeing the same grid of icons for years on end for iOS?. You are given the choice whereas for iOS you are put into a straight-jacket whether you like it or not.
14. Very limited automation support
- Cannot automate sound profile switching - tediously need to remember to flip the silent switch on and off or be embarassed if you forget to do it.
Android - phone auto-silent itself during meeting periods (as specified in calendar entries) or at night or when phone enter a certain location. Never have to bother again with the mundane task of remembering to flip switch like in iphone.
- Limted Call management (Do-Not-Disturb).
Android - there many apps that can do full-fledged call management - based on time periods / location / calendar entries. e.g. I can setup to only allow calls from specific persons during meeting period (as defined in calendar) and other people gets redirected to another number.
- Cannot do phone conversation recording.
Android/Note3 - supports background phone conversation recording.
15. OTHER useful and good to have NOT available with Iphone5s (as compared to S4/Note3)
- Bigger screen phone (up to 5.7in for phablet)
- Internal storage up to 128GB (64 + upto 64Gb microSD) + Free 50GB drop-box. You want to strangle someone looking at the cut-throat price Apple charge for extra storage (32Gb extra costs $100 whereas an equivalent external microSD costs $20)
- Removable battery for the extremely heavy users. Or just pop in a new battery when the current battery eol without needing to send your phone in to repair center.
- Camera with so much more capability than IP5s - higher pixel for both front and back camera, front/back shot, cinema shot, 4K video, stereo recording etc etc.
- Screen Mirroring: MHL/HDMI cable allows showing phone screen on
ANY TV without needing to lug around bulky and expensive AppleTV box.
- Replaceable back cover - dont need to use unsightly external protective case to protect against scratches like the scratch-easy IP5s metal casing. If cover is scratch just buy a new ones - no need for expensive repair.
- Sensors galore. Supports more sensors including temperature/humidity/IR sensors. You can use Note3 as pedometer without add-ons-can't do that on IP5s. You can turn on hand gesture when touching phone is not convenient. You can use phone with gloves.
-S-Pen - this capability brings a host of capabilities not available for IP5s incl. pressure sensitive hand writing, hover view, pen-window etc.
- multi-color LED indicator for missed calls/sms/notifications without turning on screen. This is one of the can't-do-without.
-IR Blaster - with bundle watch-on app it becomes a full tv-guide/remote. Or as a general universal remote control to control all the devices in your home directly. You can even pin the IR remote app to the lock-screen for each access.
- Sensors galore. Supports more sensors including temperature/humidity/IR sensors. You can use Note3 as pedometer without add-ons-can't do that on IP5s. You can turn on hand gesture when touching phone is not convenient. You can use phone with gloves.
- Smart Features: Smart-Stay is so useful when reading without the annoyance of the need to keep touching the screen to keep it on. Smart-rotation is also nifty i.e. screen rotates based on the orientation of your face. Other useful features are flip over to silent phone, vibrate when you have missed call/sms when you touch phone.
-Keyboard with multiple words prediction for less typing. You can type any words with 3 keypress (2 to show a list of predicted words and one tap to select). And with next word prediction, typing can be so much faster. And keyboard learns new words unlike Iphone5s cannot do. Also include ability for T9 keyboard and continous,swipe input. And Note3 pen input is really good in translating your handwriting. Voice input is also much better and faster with support of offline voice module.
-Overall better and more useful system information with alerts - call duration, data usage, battery info,
-Ringtone. Something simple that everyone wants. On Note3, you can select any files in the storage as ringtone easily using file explorer. Adding ringtone in Iphone5 requires you to follow a series of complicated steps.
-Use home button to answer call (or power button to end call), pattern/facial lock, haptic feedback
- The ability to download/buy apps from the browser and have it sync to phone is so much easier and faster. You can open multi-tab to view/compare apps (unlike the appstore in iOS which allows only viewing of one app details at a time). Also, if you have many devices, you can select which devices the app will sync to. Accounts handling is also better in Note3/Android. On Android, you can setup multiple accounts and purchase different type of apps with separate accounts. On the device, you just specify which accounts you want to sync apps.
- Better Google-based services/apps which tightly integrate to OS. Map, Hangout, Google+ etc are all seamless integrated into the OS
- Automation-type apps (all not possible on Iphone5s)
o automaticly switch phone settings (vol, bt, wifi etc) based on events/calendars/GPS/nfc
o advanced call manager to filter/record/re-direct calls automatically
o NFC tasks (using tectiles) - e.g. tap to call/sms directly or change phone settings
o schedule auto send sms/email (birthday, meeting reminders, location etc)
o auto check-in to social services, auto upload photos/info without need to open the opp like in Iphone5, scheduled cloud backup
o etc etc
